22.9

When I first got here in Kralupy there were these signs all over the place. 22.9 they said. Everywhere. It seemed to me to be some sort of conspiracy. Come to find out, there was a big referendum on this day (the 22nd of September, hence "22.9") It just happened last week. The referendum was over whether Kralupy should have a square or not. Every city in Czech Republic and all over Europe have main central squares. But Kralupy does not. They lost it when they were being bombed by the Allies in WWII. So there is this sense that Kralupy needs to have a square and should have one.

Yea, so pretty much like every post every 10 meters has these signs. So... the 22.9 is the day of the vote, and the 7.088 means 7,088 in English, and it is how many votes they were looking for.
So for the past month, everything people talk about is this referendum. People are doing stuff to aid getting the word out and all these sorts of things. It's like the city runs around this amazing thing. So anyways, it just happened, and I thought I would give you a little taste of what life was like in the everyday aspect.

Maybe you can even tell the "22.9" signs in the front of my school. (This is my school by the way). School and politics apparently are no problem here.

So you're wondering maybe how it turned out? I think it passed. Not too sure though. It's kinda sketchy on the whole details, but I do believe that this did go through. But I think it will be a while until they start tearing down this building and get everything finalized. I mean, seriously, they are in no hurry. There has been this huge hole in the middle of the road for the past 4 months at least, and they are starting to fix it now, but they just keep digging more and more deep holes in the road, and they're big ones also. So things kinda get crazy when things need to get done.

Another fun story. I'll label this one TERRORIST ATTACK

So, they have been planning this "Terrorist Attack" on Kralupy for at least the past month. Kralupy has a nuclear plant fairly closeby (I teach there actually) and has this huge rubber plant that the city is actually centered around. So it would be a probable target for an attack. So, they got hundreds of people in the community to volunteer as victims. Students over 18 were a part of this as well so they could get out of school of course. So anyways, this was the same night at the big referendum. I think they were supposed to blow up a train or something, and starting at 2am they were supposed to go into "terrorist mode". So... the ambulance and fire, and all the emergency people have known about this for at least a month. And the thing started around 2am. Anyone guess when they showed up to help? Yea... around 3. And the hospital they were supposed to go to was in the city of Kladno, and no one got there until like 5! So of course everyone died. It seemed to be a total disaster, and basically they realized that if a terrorist wanted to blow up Kralupy, everyone's pretty much screwed. Ah... life in the Czech Republic. Sweet as honey, baby.